]]>Community and Family; Grief, Gratitude and Respecthttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2016/12/community-and-family-grief-gratitude-and-respect/
Sun, 11 Dec 2016 00:58:09 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=613 Sgt. Luckman’s Academy Class Photo: Jake Gutierrez On the morning of the memorial of Tacoma Police Officer Jake Gutierrez, Milton Police Sgt. Nils Luckman provided this photo of his academy class. Sgt. Luckman is shown near the middle of the back row. Third from the right in the front row is Jake Gutierrez […]

MPD Sgt. Luckman is shown near the middle of the back row. Third from the right in the front row is Jake Gutierrez (Click on photo to view)

Sgt. Luckman’s Academy Class Photo: Jake Gutierrez

On the morning of the memorial of Tacoma Police Officer Jake Gutierrez, Milton Police Sgt. Nils Luckman provided this photo of his academy class. Sgt. Luckman is shown near the middle of the back row. Third from the right in the front row is Jake Gutierrez (this same photo appeared in the video collage shown during the service). The association of Officer Gutierrez and Sgt. Luckman in this photo is a reminder of the closeness of the law enforcement family and community.

The Law Enforcement Community: Motivated to Honor and to Pay Respect

Every officer in this photo, every officer in every academy photo, is a member of a law enforcement community and family now in mourning. This is evident in the range of law enforcement agencies represented at the Tacoma Dome gathering to grieve and to show gratitude and respect to Jake Gutierrez, and to his family.

MPD Paid Respects and Supported the Ceremonies

Members of the Milton Police Department joined their law enforcement family at the Dome to hear from Jake’s family and colleagues just how deeply felt and profound this pain and loss have been. Some MPD members (Chief Hernandez, Chaplain Adam June, Officers Sarff, Torgerson, Kang, and Johnson) participated in the procession and attended the ceremonies in person. Officer Kidwell took a shift on Tacoma streets to free up a Tacoma PD officer to attend Jake’s services. Sgt. Luckman and Detective Camden maintained MPD’s presence in Milton.

Protect and Serve

The moving, traditional ceremonies were a tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of Jake Gutierrez. He moved toward the threat to protect others, as every one of his law enforcement brothers and sisters captured in group pictures from every academy class have sworn to do.

Milton residents: If you haven’t done it already, download the Milton Police Department app from the Android or iPhone app store. It’s an easy way to handle non-emergency phone calls to MPD or, perhaps more importantly, to alert MPD with a crime tip or a code violation observation. The app downloads relatively quickly and the interface is intuitive.

Video tour

If you need a little app orientation, the app’s developer, Logic Tree, has included a quick, generic tour of the app (see below). After you download the app, just click the blue “go” button to view the video on your phone.

A quick video tour of the app is available after downloading the app to your phone (Above is just a picture of the video start screen; you can’t run the video from here).

The tour only takes a few minutes and provides a quick overview of how to use the app.

Crime Tips and Code Violation Buttons

While the video tour gives a good, quick look at the whole app, Milton residents may be most interested in the Crime Tips and Code Violation buttons (see two images, below). Clicking either button opens up a page where you can enter either crime tip or code violation information.

]]>Updating these pageshttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2016/09/updating-these-pages/
Sat, 17 Sep 2016 21:45:49 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=572We’ve been working on a few updates to these pages. We have much more work to do, but we thought you might like to poke around at what we have so far. The pages we publish are built using a common editing tool. The tool delivers the pages in a certain format, which is easy […]

]]>We’ve been working on a few updates to these pages. We have much more work to do, but we thought you might like to poke around at what we have so far.

The pages we publish are built using a common editing tool. The tool delivers the pages in a certain format, which is easy to navigate, once you get the idea.

Although we all know how to navigate web pages, this is just a little hint on how these pages work.

Home page

The MPF Home Page

At left is an image of our Home Page, the page that opens when you take a direct link to the site. You can open and read the current blog post by clicking on the blog heading. Or, you can navigate to other pages (see the image, below)

The blog page (this page)

The blog page

You’re looking at our site’s blog (this page). It’s easy to navigate to other pages in the site. Just click on the tabs at the top of the page (Please see the image, left). (More pages will be added as time allows).

Navigating the tabs

Navigating on our sub-pages

Clicking on a tab will open a sub-page. Each sub-page may have its own sub-pages (Please see the image, left).

]]>2015’s Milton Police Department’s Officer of the Year: Office Kevin Petersonhttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2016/03/2015s-milton-police-departments-officer-of-the-year-office-kevin-peterson/
https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2016/03/2015s-milton-police-departments-officer-of-the-year-office-kevin-peterson/#respondTue, 22 Mar 2016 21:07:25 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=452Looking back on this year’s Officers’ Awards Dinner: What a full year for the much-admired Officer Kevin Peterson! Officer of the Year; Purple Heart; Most DUI arrests. During the presentation of the awards, Chief Tony Hernandez told a riveting story of Officer Peterson’s actions that resulted in the Purple Heart recognition: Even though seriously injured […]

]]>Looking back on this year’s Officers’ Awards Dinner: What a full year for the much-admired Officer Kevin Peterson! Officer of the Year; Purple Heart; Most DUI arrests.
During the presentation of the awards, Chief Tony Hernandez told a riveting story of Officer Peterson’s actions that resulted in the Purple Heart recognition: Even though seriously injured in an intentional collision caused by the suspect, Officer Peterson maintained control of the scene until backup arrived.
The photo at the podium (thanks to Julie Watts) includes Officer Peterson receiving thanks and congratulations from Chief Hernandez on behalf of MPD and the entire population of Milton.

Officer of the Year

Chief Tony Hernandez and the Milton Police Department singled out Detective Amy Camden as the most recent Officer of the Year. The well-deserved award was presented at this year’s Milton Police Department Police Officers’ Awards Dinner.

“…For your tireless pursuit of cases, writing search warrants and handling of difficult cases of sexual assault, child abuse and neglect. We are proud to award you Officer of the Year.”

In addition to Officer of the Year, Detective Camden received a special Letter of Recognition. Again alluding to the difficult nature of some of the detective’s work, the letter mentions:

“…demonstrated knowledge and dedication during a sexual assault case. IT was your perseverance and determination not to let this case “die” that resulted in successful prosecution of the suspect.”

To those of us citizens who have been lucky enough to see Detective Camden in action, the wording of the praise in her recognitions seems so justly deserved. In particular, the writer of this post was present as Detective Camden offered comfort to a family victimized by burglary while, at the same time, made it obvious that she would use whatever means she had at her disposal to close the case.

]]>https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/04/detective-amy-camden-officer-of-the-year/feed/0MPD Awards Dinner and the Seeger Community Awardhttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/02/mpd-awards-dinner-and-the-seeger-community-award/
https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/02/mpd-awards-dinner-and-the-seeger-community-award/#respondMon, 23 Feb 2015 00:24:55 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=425Honor to Spare This year’s Milton Police Awards Dinner featured recognition aplenty, as always. Those gathered heard stories of bravery and commitment on the part of our Milton Police officers, sometimes in detail that reminded us that police work requires a special person, and police work done well requires exactly what we have in Milton: […]

This year’s Milton Police Awards Dinner featured recognition aplenty, as always. Those gathered heard stories of bravery and commitment on the part of our Milton Police officers, sometimes in detail that reminded us that police work requires a special person, and police work done well requires exactly what we have in Milton: Our MPD officers.

In future editions of the MPF blog, we’ll highlight what we heard about our police force that evening. We’ll also revisit the extraordinary tale of a genuine local hero. For this edition, however, we’ll touch on a well-deserved recognition presented that evening to our own Mary Tompkins: The first-ever Seeger Community Award.

While Mary is certainly a member of the Milton Police Department board, her name of the very first Seeger Community Award plaque goes beyond her highly-valued contribution to our group.

The blog asked Milton Police Department president Katrina Asay, to explain the award and the decision to choose Mary as its first recipient.

She responded: “The award is called ‘The Seeger Community Award’ awarded for service to the community that is above and beyond. It is in honor of Sara Seeger, owner of Fife Flowers who died unexpectedly last summer. Her brother, Mike Seeger is the other owner of the flower shop and was gracious enough to give us permission to name this award after Sara. Mary has been an active part of our community since she moved her and bought Dave’s about 8-10 years ago. She serves on the City of Milton Events Committee which is very time-consuming as well as the MPF as a charter member. She always opens up her restaurant for fundraisers to anyone in the community that is in need and has raised thousands for them. She has had a big impact in our small community and has made Dave’s a central meeting place for the community.”

Thanks, as always, to Julie Watts for these photos.

Mike Seeger, brother of the late Sara Seeger and Katrina Asay present the Seeger Award to an obviously-touched Mary Tompkins.

]]>https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/01/annual-police-officers-awards-dinner/feed/0The Essential Volunteerhttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/01/the-essential-volunteer/
https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/01/the-essential-volunteer/#respondFri, 16 Jan 2015 04:37:50 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=409Good works the benefit the community don’t just happen. Capable and committed members of the community make them happen. And sometimes, it can be fun. Milton Days, 2014 When the Milton Police Foundation was looking for some way to support last summer’s Milton Days, they kicked around several ideas: Fishing booths, sack races, the usual. […]

]]>Good works the benefit the community don’t just happen. Capable and committed members of the community make them happen.

And sometimes, it can be fun.

Milton Days, 2014

When the Milton Police Foundation was looking for some way to support last summer’s Milton Days, they kicked around several ideas: Fishing booths, sack races, the usual.

Then someone suggested: “We could put up a jail.”

“A jail? In the park?”

“Sure. We could run around and ‘arrest’ people. They’d have to pay to get out. Maybe make a few bucks to help our police department.”

“You mean, make money with a jail.”

“Why not? Fife does it.”

“Yeah. Sounds great. A jail. But somebody will have to build it.”

“I thought of that, already.”

Everybody looked at Jason.

Jason nodded. “Sure. I’ll do it.”

Meet Jason Clayton

A Pasco native, Jason moved to this side of the mountains, bringing his University of Idaho Fisheries Resources degree. He took up research and field positions that led him to Alaska and Oregon, not to mention our own area.

While still in Pasco, Jason had volunteered as a Lion, even as a kid. “My mom & dad both belonged,” he tells us. “I’m a third generation Lion. I was president of the White River Lions Club, too.”

Jason now lives in Milton. “You can find my place. It’s got blue and green Seahawks lights.” Once here, Jason joined up to lend a hand with the Milton Events Committee. He joined the Milton Police Foundation board about three years ago, adding a welcome wealth of volunteer experience.

The Jail

So, the jail. Jason gathered up materials and supplies and designed and built the Milton Police Department hoosegow in his garage. “It took me about four hours, all told. I put it together so I could just load it into the truck and get it over to the park.

The Outcome

How did the “Jail and Bail” work out?

“We locked up about forty folks,” Jason reports.

Pickpockets? Bank robbers?

“Well, no. More like our mayor. And chief of police. And me.”

Did we make out big financially? Like certain nearby cities we could name?

“Not exactly. Just a few bucks. But it’ll help our cops.”

And as we said, it can be fun.

Wait ‘til Next Summer

And the jail? Where is it now?

“I’ve got it at home. Ready for the next Milton Days.”

So just watch out.

Next: The Essential Volunteer and our Key Contributors

Watch the blog for a quick post on how Jason’s community contacts and others step up to support our police department!

]]>https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2015/01/the-essential-volunteer/feed/0The Citizen Must Call, Pleasehttps://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2014/06/the-citizen-must-call-please/
https://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/2014/06/the-citizen-must-call-please/#respondWed, 11 Jun 2014 14:10:22 +0000http://www.miltonpolicefoundation.us/?p=399The Milton Police Foundation Blog sat down with Milton Chief of Police Mark Langford recently to pick up on his ideas on citizen-police involvement, particularly in the area of crime detection and prevention. “We’re lucky in Milton,” the Chief began in answer to a general ‘How’s it going?’ kind of question. “The citizens and our […]

]]>The Milton Police Foundation Blog sat down with Milton Chief of Police Mark Langford recently to pick up on his ideas on citizen-police involvement, particularly in the area of crime detection and prevention.

“We’re lucky in Milton,” the Chief began in answer to a general ‘How’s it going?’ kind of question. “The citizens and our police officers have a good rapport. It’s a two way communication. But,” he continued, “if there was one thing I’d really like to see happen, it would be to get folks to call in and report every crime. I would also like them to call when they see something that might not be an obvious emergency, but just seems suspicious or out of place.”

The Chief went on to clarify he wasn’t concerned that we in Milton don’t call 911 in an emergency. We do, as they do in most communities. “But it’s the situation that seems like a gray area to the caller. Maybe it’s not a break-in in progress, or smoke coming out windows. It just seems less urgent, so the caller isn’t sure about dialing the ‘emergency only’ 911 number. The caller just doesn’t want to be a nuisance and tie up the emergency system. But we really need to hear from them.”

“One of our Sergeants, Nils Luckman, sums it up this way, “We would rather have you call and it turn out to be nothing, than not call and it turn out to be something!”

He went on to describe some observations of suspicious activity that might seem less urgent:

A visitor who makes a lame statement when you answer the doorbell, like asking to see an obviously fictitious resident, then taking a hurried leave.

A vehicle following a UPS or FedEx truck around a residential area, especially during the holidays

Graffiti

Any kind of nuisance activity that detracts from the high quality of life we are seeking to enhance and maintain in the City of Milton.

The Chief went on. “And these incidents probably seem less urgent. But they’re important, and we need to hear about them. The citizen’s observation might help more than they could guess.”

The 80-20 Rule

“It’s impossible to use modern crime analysis and mapping technology if the citizens don’t report,” the Chief said. “The bottom line is, it’s the old 80-20 rule. 20 percent of the crooks commit 80 percent of the crimes. If we can just focus in on them, we can reduce a lot of crime.

“For example, the parking area for the Interurban Trail. We have a known suspect who’s responsible for a series of car prowls there and other areas of our nearby communities. Now, it might not seem like it’s worth the effort to report a car break-in, when maybe some CDs or a purse gets taken…but it is.”

Here, the Chief shifted topics just a little: “People still need to be reminded not to leave valuables in plain sight in their cars.”

He continued with his basic message: “The thing about these prowls, the suspect, who is actually a female in this case, is engaged in identity theft. That’s the target of these break-ins. Personal information. And a timely call to us might get her out of the ID theft business sooner rather than later.”

Alternative to 911

“As I say,” the Chief repeated, “If you see something that seems suspicious, like a strange car in your neighbor’s driveway, it’s okay to call 911. And while it may seem like a waste of time, we’d really like folks to report every crime. Car prowls are a good example. But,” he went on, “if you are not comfortable calling 911 because it’s not an emergency, we have other, non-emergency numbers you can use to reach us.”

He offered these two numbers:

The 24 hour non-emergency number (253-922-6633, ext. 1) and the MPD office number (253-922-8735).